I don't like blank walls

One week, Deboo, a friend, came into my room and when we were talking about some work, told me about his word for the day, more like week or month :)

Ephemera, items designed to be useful or important for only a short time.

He then looked at my wall and said, "Aaju, that could be your ephemera!". This happened a year ago. Since then my ephemera has had additions, some deaths, some destruction, some losses due to peeling walls etc. This is something I am really proud and fond of, so I thought I should document it since its my last month of college. I am probably never going to look this the same way again, after this month. I will miss it. I am so used to staring at it aimlessly that I have almost gotten used to its existence and know parts of texts by-heart and know immediately when a part of it is missing or has fallen off. The first thing I do when I get back from college is it stick it back or fix it.

The collection ranges from maps, brochures, circus and movie tickets, chocolate wrappers and boxes, menu cards and table mats from many places, coasters, instruction manuals, postcards and drawings, (from all over the world) to name a few. Yes, please do not freak when you see a Coffee Day Menu card stuck on the wall. I live with some kleptomaniacs who like to flick menu cards and things like that :) Just for fun and just menu cards and signage!

This ends at my desk, a cosy little place with a window to my right. A perfect spot to sit and work. When bored or bugged I just stare out the window at the pretty purple tree right outside my house or spy on people walking around the colony!

My desk is full of stuff, but I try and keep it organised. There few essentials like my pen and brush stand, stationary box, lap top, vaseline and my half-a-speaker and all the little collectables like my box of tazos, Glucon-D for when I feel sleepy, my retainer box and the little idol that my grand-dad gave me before my boards. The latest addition to my hall of fame is the CSK yellow horn and the flag which hangs right near my curtain. I love the new yellow! My table used to host the whole of the shrek family, all of which I collected by travelling to many Mc.Donalds all over Bombay. Sadly I had to shift their home due to space constraints.

Lastly, this is my map wall. Which is not fully covered yet. As of now it has maps of Melkote, Belur, the Andaman islands, Boston, Harvard Square and Italy. One day I want to travel all over the world and cover up a wall of my room with maps.

I think that's all the pointless stuff I have put up all over my walls over these 4 years of college. I don't even want to think of the day I'll have to take it all down. Sadly it is coming soon.

The Pratham Books Event

20th march was the world story telling day, so Pratham books had an opening event for their new book on the river Cauvery in the Govt. Urdu Primary School. There was a story reading session by the really enterprising editor of pratham books. She was so amazing even I couldn't resist acting like a 7 year old all over again and listening to her read the book out, in awe.

In the same event, because I have been working on the Tippy tap for Mr. Vishwanath's course on climate change, he suggested we demonstrate it there for the little kids and talk to them a little bit about hand-washing and saving water since it was the 'World water day' two days after that. Thanks to Pratham Books and to Mr.Vishwanath for giving me this opportunity to do it. It was truly a memorable experience. (Mr.Vishwanath, is someone you must talk to, if you ever get a chance. He is so full of positive energy and truly belongs to the 'saving the world' gang and the best part is, he makes you want to do it too! Practising what we preach is another little thing we need to learn from him and his wife, maybe I'll explain how in a later post)

So, first we chilled and talked and got to know a little bit about each other.

Then the storytelling session commenced. This was followed by me setting up the tap. Sadly, as anyone who knows me would know, my hindi is terrible! I almost felt like a fool while explaining to kids in an Urdu school about how to use it, but I think I managed fine with help with Mr.Vishwanath. So we set it up and explained to them how to use it and why it is important to wash your hands before and after eating and after using the wash-room.

But unexpectedly, what excited the kids most was the soap strips! So, maybe we should use just that! As long as it encourages them to use soap each time they wash their hands. So, to get their turn they all ran! The tap almost got massacred, but it was fun watching them get excited about it!

After it nearly died and all the soap strips were exhausted, there was a clear line formed and they tried it out one by one :)

It was truly a fun experience and I hope at least some of the kids took something back with them that day. Thanks to everyone who made this possible! Also lastly, there was a mention in the papers as well!

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report_many-a-design-solution-for-a-greener-planet_1363120 (About the tap and course itself in DNA)

http://news.indiainfo.com/article/100322130805_c-86-144382/970204.html (and about this particular event online )

Thanks to Sara who helped me put the tap together in the last minute even though she couldn't accompany me to the event.

Bringing in a coffee house

This is a very inside college, design education type joke about the advent of CCD into our college, in one of our classrooms, one very normal morning(but of course this made it abnormal). Yes, I still and always will disagree with the coffee day being bunged into one of our classrooms on one random morning!

You may click to enlarge and see and read clearer, but if you don't want to, it reads :

Design Problem

Aah..I'm feeling too lazy to go have chai at the kadai downstairs.

Design Solution

That's why we have got it up for you.

Eh? Direct solution? Whatever happened to the design process dude?

Moral of the story. Practice what you preach.

Tippy Tap

A short clip I made for a course on climate change. It tells one how to make a Tippy Tap, a cost effective water dispenser which uses 1/10th the amount of water one would usually use while washing their hands. Try it and promote it! It would be ideal for areas with water shortage and disaster areas for hand washing with soap (which many of us do not do in regular intervals!). Am refining it and will put up the final version soon.

Tippy Tap from Aajwanthi on Vimeo.

Please Check my blog!

Mura, a friend of mine sent me this link and boy, is this guy insane! I couldn't stop watching the videos on loop and humming the songs. This is a MUST watch for all bloggers and do watch his other video's if you like him! He is truly awesome :) (Click the image to go to the video)

Attempt One

Yes. I am one of those! Cooking, instead of being a stress buster, gives me stress. When my m0m cooks she just lets me be, I quietly move around the kitchen like a leach and tag along behind her and cut vegetables and clean the counter and just put in spoons of masala when she tells me how much. So yes, the kitchen is a place for odd jobs. I love being the side kick though! Cleaning, cutting and arranging, but that's it. Of course there is always a time to change I guess. I have decided to do something about it, finally. I know, French toast is basics, and mine doesn't even look so good, but it didn't taste bad :) You can check with my house-mates if you want! Here is the toast and banana milkshake I made for my evening snack. I think I made too much and ate too much though! Initial excitement I think, I hope.

Pretty looking cola lollipop

Recently I read somewhere that Starbucks is going to convert its hot beverage cups to 10% recycled material, a move that sees this coffee giant further integrate environmental practices into their selling. They use 1.5 million cups a year and now, they have recycled paper for their sleeves, napkins, cardboard carriers and small packets.This was its first move to try and use recycled paper for its packaging. 10% is still very minuscule, but this is also maybe partly because this material costs more. This is probably the reason why many companies have not switched to recycled packaging and cups. There we go! Design problem. There are so many ways of recycling material, so maybe we should look at how to reduce the cost of this so that these multinational giants can actually use them, which then will make a big difference to our material usage.

I looked this up because I got a gift a few weeks ago. Vishnu had very sweetly got me a cola lollipop from Starbucks, all the way from Dubai, with its packaging, which was not crushed. Quite a commendable job :) Thank you vish! I loved the packaging. It is very sweet and feels personal, and the amount this adds to the brand and its nature is amazing. I do hope they take up this deal and switch to using more recycled material.

P.S The Cola lollipop, as one would except was not brown in colour like the cute dancing cola glasses on the cover, it was white, but it did taste good!

Metal Lathe, the saviour!

For the past 5 weeks, I have been doing a product design course with the 3rd year students and working in the workshop to learn how to use the heavy duty machines is a compulsory part of it. It was also something I was looking forward to, but alas, little did I know what I was getting into. The first 3 weeks, I spent manually filing a rectangular piece of metal to make an 'M' out of it! Every little filing that fell onto the ground, I felt like crying for! It looked so easy when the model was shown but filing each mm to get the correct dimensions was a nightmare. After three weeks I arrived at a shape that looked moderately like an 'M' only to measure the top angle to find out it was wrong and I had exceeded 90 degrees a week ago or something! So, there went my job, feeling sad about the 3 days I spent on it, I headed to my next machine.

The router! I spent an hour searching the workshop to find out that all the MDF boards had already been exhausted. (That is the best material to use for this task, the edges in a ply sheet are more ragged) So, I picked up a piece of ply and drew a car and come clouds, ready to experiment with the router, ready to get it right. That machine insisted on running away from me! But I managed to finish it in the end, only it looked like a kinder-garden kid's drawing. Apparently finishing it with a file makes it look better. I will try and do that soon.

Finally, I decided its high time I got SOMETHING RIGHT! Today, I entered the workshop, fully determined to get the metal lathe job right. I was at it the whole day, even though I felt dizzy in the middle due to the vibration of the machine, I guess it helped! I am so proud of getting the finish right I had to put it up. Finally I have some faith, I can do something at the workshop.

Perspective- IF

Your perspective of anything changes when you look at it using a curved surface!